


hate to say that i need you

by butwewillstay



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Movie: The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998), One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:09:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24918883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butwewillstay/pseuds/butwewillstay
Summary: After Antarctica, Scully can't sleep. So she goes to Mulder's apartment.-A missing scene, after Mulder saved Scully but before Scully's final hearing.
Relationships: Fox Mulder & Dana Scully, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 1
Kudos: 58





	hate to say that i need you

**Author's Note:**

> [Content Warnings: brief discussions of near-death experiences and trauma]
> 
> Title from the song “Bad Habit” by Ben Platt
> 
> One shot.

She can still feel the bone-chilling cold, even after she’s bundled herself with all the sweaters and quilts she can find. It’s been hours since she returned from the hospital, since she received a lecture from Skinner (although she could tell he was more happy to see them alive than mad) and a surprise visit from the Lone Gunmen. 

Scully contemplates taking another hot bath, but the water reminds her a little too much of the liquid-filled pod she’d been shoved into at the Antarctic facility, even after a few days of recovery. So instead she flicks off her bedroom lights and lays down to try to go to sleep. 

It doesn’t work.

She’s tired, but every time she closes her eyes, all she can see is the white nothingness of the snowy plains, where she hadn't known what to do except hold Mulder close and pray. So she turns on her side and watches the boxy red numbers on her alarm clock change as time passes by. After 27 minutes, she gives in and accepts that she will not be able to fall asleep.

This is ridiculous, she thinks. It’s been  _ days _ since medics pulled them onto stretchers and airlifted them away, she should be fine by now. She’s certainly had worse experiences. 

She sighs, and throws off the blanket and stalks out of her bedroom. After fixing a cup of tea, she hovers in the doorway of her kitchen and deliberates over what to do next. She could turn on the TV, and mindlessly watch QVC or whatever is on at this hour. What she really wants to do is talk to Mulder, who she hasn’t seen since he dropped by her hospital room briefly after being discharged before being shooed out by an over-attentive nurse. She stares at the mug of steaming tea in her hand as if it will give her an answer. 

Her body makes a decision before her mind does, and she has already started her car to drive to Mulder’s apartment, the mug of tea abandoned on her counter, when she doubts herself. Would he be annoyed if she shows up in the middle of the night for no reason? Then she reminds herself that he himself does the same thing to her on a semi-regular basis, and it dispels any worry she had. 

Despite her fatigued state, she manages to get to his building without crashing. She hesitates again briefly outside his door  — what if he’s asleep? — before knocking. After a moment, she hears padded footsteps from inside, and then the chain of the lock sliding off to unlock it. And then Mulder is in front of her. He’s wearing sweatpants and a rumpled white tee-shirt, and for a second she thinks she’s woken him before she hears the muffled sound of the television behind him.

“Scully?” He asks, and raises his eyebrows. 

“Hi,” She says, and shrugs. “Sorry to bother you this late. I couldn’t sleep.”

He opens the door wider to let her in. He follows her into his living room, which is dimly lit by the television and the eerie blue light of the fish tank. She moves a stray tabloid (“Alien Baby Survives UFO Crash”) from the couch to the coffee table before sitting down.

“It’s fine,” He says, and disappears into his kitchen. After a moment, he returns with a plastic takeout container full of something slimy that looks like it has been sitting in his fridge for at least a week (and, considering that neither of them had been in any fit state to order food since Antarctica, it probably has). 

“Are you hungry?” He waves it at her, and she raises her eyebrows.

“Mulder, I don’t think that qualifies as food anymore,” She says, and he studies it for a moment before shrugging and placing it back on his kitchen counter. He flops down next to her on the couch and rests his feet on the coffee table. 

On the television, the commercial that had been playing ends and the show resumes, an old rerun of  _ The Twilight Zone _ . Scully vaguely remembers it, something about a man who travels back in time and meets himself as a kid.

“Honestly, I couldn’t sleep either,” Mulder admits, and turns slightly to shift his gaze from the television to her face.

“Because of…” She trails off, unable to encapsulate all of their recent experiences into a single phrase. Dallas, performance hearings, tanker trucks, cornfields, bees, vaccines, Antarctica. She settles on “Everything?” 

Mulder nods. “You?” He asks.

“The same,” She says. Onscreen, the main character of the episode watches his younger self carve his name onto the side of a gazebo, and remembers himself doing the same thing. The music swells as he has a moment of horrific realization that the boy in front of him is himself. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asks softly. She meets his gaze; and his eyes search her face, a common feature of the unspoken layers of their conversations. In the years they’ve known each other, they’ve become adept at reading each other and seeing past superficial armor. 

“I’m fine,” She says, and although  _ fine _ in their language has a complex meaning and often means just the opposite, tonight she is being honest. Here, on Mulder’s beat-up leather couch, as outside the window life in Arlington and the rest of the world passes by, it is easy for her to say that everything is alright, at least for right now.

“Okay,” Mulder says, and they return their attention to the television. Scully kicks off her patent leather work pumps, and curls her legs to her side on the couch, so she is half laying down. 

They sit in comfortable silence save for the TV, sometimes interrupted by debates over the believability of a supernatural (in Scully’s case) or behavioral (in Mulder’s) element of the show. 

Eventually, the episode ends, and as Rod Serling’s voice narrates the closing scene, Mulder stands and pulls a knit blanket from his hall closet. He smiles sheepishly as he unfolds it and gently throws half over her, before returning to the couch.

“Didn’t want you to be cold,” He says. The tender act makes something loosen in Scully’s chest, and a warm, content feeling (that is the opposite of the freezing cold she hasn’t been able to get rid of) spreads through her.

“Thanks,” She says softly. A new episode starts, and the eerie piano music of the intro filters through the TV speakers. She should go, she thinks. It’s very late. The street outside Mulder’s apartment has gone quiet, and if she doesn’t leave soon then she’ll be tempted to stay the night. 

She hasn’t had time to process what happened in the hallway, or what would have happened if there hadn’t been a bee on her shirt collar, but she knows they’ll have to talk about it eventually. Or maybe it’ll be added to their list of taboo topics that they generally ignore, like Emily or her cancer. Either way, she doesn’t want to think about it now, or add anything else to the confusing mess she has to figure out.

And yet, she doesn’t want to go. 

There will be consequences to face, questions about their actions and the evidence they’ve procured. But for now, she’s warm, and Mulder’s presence keeps away the vivid memories of ice and snow and being wheeled away on a stretcher by strange men in hazmat suits. The soft drone of the television is oddly comforting, so she lets her heavy eyes fall closed as she slips into a calm, dreamless sleep. 


End file.
